On The Fisherman's Treasure and Being Madmen
by Nan Ma
Summary: My name's Gan Ning; his name's Ling Tong. When we first met, neither of us had any clue as to where we were going to end up.
1. Chapter 1

You there, yeah, you. You've been sitting there ever since I got here. Lord Sun sent you to say something? No? Well what about Lu Meng, since he's always on my case?

Oh. I see. Hmm, if I need anything?

Well look, you got the boring job. I don't think I'll be needing much anymore. Go do something productive instead of sitting here staring at me. No offense, but it is kind of starting to creep me out.

Actually- hey, wait. Wait. Actually there is something you can do for me. No, come here. Grab a pillow- here, take mine. I won't be using it for much longer.

Now, what I want you to do is listen to me, and listen very carefully. You comfortable? Good. Now listen.

There's a story along the river, in every fishing village and every weed-run shack. It's about a fisherman's treasure and it goes something like this.

Once upon a time there was a dirt-poor, honest fisherman who never cheated a sod, never begged or stole, and never did a bad-handed thing in his life. If you ask me, this was probably the reason he was in such a pinch in the first place. But anyways, one day Heaven or something out there took mercy on him and he drew up a cache of ancient treasure, so much stuff that even when he filled his boat, he had to make ten trips to bring it all to shore. From there he became a rich man for the rest of his days.

It's just an old tale made to reassure people that despite netting up nothing but minnows and eating nothing but old rice in half a patchy hut, they might actually get something one day if they were nice. (But if that were true they probably won't be sitting there munching on rat shit telling the story in the first place.) Now, I know there are a bunch of holes in the story. First, you know this story was made up by peasants who've never held more than a copper in their lives, because if there's something about gold and treasure, it's _heavy._ I mean, take a big bronze casting and try holding it above your head and you'll see what I mean. Now imagine it three times heavier and that's gold for you. Nice stuff, gold, but a blasted pain to haul around. (One of the reasons saving for a rainy day is a stupid idea.) If he fills his rickety little boat halfway even, it'd sink faster than you can shout it. And ten boatfuls? What, is he living on a goddamn dam or something?

But the biggest logic jump in this story is, who the hell hits a mother load like that? It's impossible. Physically, statistically impossible. No one is that lucky, and no one, not the prissiest, cleanest saint to a scummy dirty bandit like, well, me, even _deserves_ it.

No one lands a bonanza like that!

Or so I thought.

The name's Gan Ning, and once upon a time, I _did_ find the fisherman's treasure.

The first time I met Ling Tong I thought that he was the meanest, nastiest, most spite-assed scum-tossing man-eating little piece of shit ever to pop out from a demon's bumhole. I think it went something along the lines of me looking up and all of a sudden some guy's screaming bloody murder and trying to run me down with a horse.

I can't say I was too shocked by that. I mean, going from a bandit leader to a fighter and all, stuff like that happens to me everyday. So I'm pretty okay with that kind of stuff in general.

Thing is, this was different. It was in the middle of a _party._ Indoors, mind you, as in inside someone's house?

Yeah, you heard that right. That little fucker charged a warhorse right through Lu Meng's living room. And don't ask me how he got it through the door, because to this day no one, not even that son of a cow himself, has a clue. (He tells me, "Hmm, I rode in, heard you were in there, and was too angry to notice. But yeah, now that you mention it, how _did_ I pull that off?")

By the way, it was a party for me, just so you know. I told you, he's kind of a diva, but what can I do?

So I'm sitting there one moment, giving a toast to my new friend and kind-of-boss Lu Meng and the next thing I know there's a fucking horse in the room.

After that, the next thing I found out was a spear flying straight at me. Naturally, I ducked and rolled out the way. Shame about Lu Meng's mother's curtains though. Right when I'm about to shout "Who the hell are you, why are you trying to kill me, and what's that goddamn horse doing here," the guy on the horse leaps off and calls me something like "A father-murdering brutish criminal killer."

So yeah. I'm kind of confused at that point. For one thing, I've done a lot of nasty dirty things, but patricide's not one of them, probably because my old man snuffed it before I was five and so I never got the chance. It's kind of a shame when I think about it- one more thing I'll never get the chance to do.

It takes Lu Meng and everyone else about ten minutes to sort things (and the newcomer) out and guess what, it turns out that _I_ killed _his_ father. Well what a coincidence man, nice to meet you. And so he's pretty pissed about that.

"Ling Tong," Lu Meng says in that stern don't-you-piss-my-socks voice he's always using with me. That's the first time I heard the fucker's name- Ling Tong. Pretty name, isn't it? Sounds like someone whining his fancy little knickers off. Suits him. "It's all in the past now. He's going to be your new comrade."

And Ling Tong does the natural, logical thing- he apologizes, saying that he thought I was still the enemy, and we shake hands and get off to a good start.

Uh-uh. No, no, no, _hell _no. He reaches into his pants (not the last time I'll see him do that, by far) and lobs a knife at me.

The first thing that I noticed about him- wait, no, let me rephrase myself. The first thing, _after_ the horse and the spear and the bloody screaming and the knife and the trying to kill me dead in my boots and everyone yelling and that kid Lu Xun wetting his pants, call me superficial but even with his hair messed up and a bloody nose, beyond that horrible scowl he was the prettiest little thing I had ever set eyes on. I mean like, he was fucking gorgeous, as in if I had a fantasy dream man or woman, they'd look like him. Of course he was trying to kill me so that kind of took away some of the impact.

So I go up to him, to where he's tied up with Lu Meng's scarf. "Calm down, man, calm down," I say. "We're on the same side now. Who are you again?"

Yeah, I was waiting for him to apologize. Too bad for me, because he snarls at me and shouted, "I'm Ling Tong, son of Ling Cao, the man you killed, and no, last time we checked we don't work with murdering criminals!"

One thing that gets me. Ling Tong's one of those people who thinks there's a difference between killing someone and following orders to kill someone. If you ask me, there's really not much a difference to the poor sod whether you had a fancy piece of paper with his name on it or now. "Murder? Come on, what's it that you go out and do everyday? Oh yeah, I think it's called _war!_"

I probably would have said more if something hadn't came out of nowhere and kicked my knees out from under me.

Lu Meng starts shouting, and when I get up, rubbing my shins, I see Ling Tong with his legs free and stretched in the most inhumanly flexible way, just glaring at me like he wanted me dead, dead, dead, which we had already established. It was kind of scary really.

So basically a recap, the first time we met he charged in, tried to kill me, and then flashed his crotch at me.

If I were the superstitious type, I'd say that it was a prophecy.

* * *

_Reuploaded after someone deleted the wrong story..._


	2. Chapter 2

Before I go on, I want to make sure you have the right image of Ling Tong in mind. You've never seen him with your own eyes before, I know. Only pictures and paintings, right? Those pretty pictures, I've heard people say that they were stylized, or exaggerations, or flattery. But truth is, once you see him in real life, you'll know that they don't even do him justice.

What am I supposed to say? I can list off words and phrases, but what good is that? You, you've never seen Ling Tong. Telling you about him is like trying to describe a rainbow to a blind man.

I'm tall, and he's even taller than me. If he tucks in his legs he fits in real perfect in my arms. But get this- he's lighter than me, the little featherweight. I could swing him onto my back and lift him up real easy. I called him Birdy for fun once, but he put a dead chicken in my bed. I'm stocky and broad, he's lean and long. Statuesque, if you want a fancy word. Endlessly long legs, and the sweetest, most amazing ass you'll ever find. And he's gorgeous- a face that makes you believe in legendary beauties. And he's got this pout- this arrogant little pout where the edges of his lips tuck down and his eyes go half-closed and his head tilts to the side. It makes you want to throw a rock in his face and cuddle and kiss him at the same time.

But the thing I really want to get across is harder to explain. Imagine you're hungry- not just hungry, but _starving._ Now imagine the finest cuts, the most uh, delicate delicacies I guess, right in front of you. I'm not talking about chow, I'm talking about juicy cuts of marbled pure prime pork, glistening with oil and soaking in sauce and spices, the fat creamy and transparent and the grain finer than silk. Imagine it steaming in front of you, the fragrance just hanging in your nostrils. Now imagine sinking your teeth into it, and right there, that feeling, that's Ling Tong. More than just desire, more than just satisfaction. Much more.

On top of that, you crave him. You'll always be hungering for more.

He's magic.

Now, I know that you'll think that I'm describing him ideally, through a lover's eyes. Definitely not. Here's what Ling Tong's like, through a lover's eyes.

He's fussy, prissy, whiny bitch who gets on your case for every little thing but refuses to admit it. According to him, it's always going to be _your_ fault. And if he doesn't get his way or if things don't go like he wants them too, well, too bad for him but worse for _you_. He's self-centered and so selfish that if you rode alongside him, by the end of the day he'd be getting a massage from _you._ Go ahead and argue with him- you were riding on the exact same route at the exact same time so there's no reason that he'd be any more tired or sore than you and by the way hadn't you just given him one yesterday until your hands felt like stone weights? Yep, win or lose he's getting that massage and you're gonna give it. He thinks a good birthday present for you is whining at you less for a day.

He can be a real mean piece of work- self-centered and selfish like I said, but at the same time, he'll give you his _everything._ If you want his wonderful, you're gonna have to put up with his terrible.

And I love him for all of that.


	3. Chapter 3

Been meaning to ask you. So, what the hell are you doing here? I know you didn't join up because you wanted too. Hmm? Oh, you're a local militia kid. Let me guess, you joined up your village's group to protect your fields and next thing you know some rich armored sod came out of nowhere and all of a sudden you're miles away from the home you were defending? I thought so.

So, you know what I do in the army? Aside from eating, drinking, and killing things, I mean. Well, I'm a vanguard general, and from your face you're not too sure about what that means.

So normally how it goes is that you send out the vanguard to drive a wedge into the enemy formation. We're the chargers, the battering ram, the rough-and-tumble idiots of the army. The way this happens is that you get a guy, and you get a few trained soldiers and a bunch of peasants. The main guy has to get everyone to run screaming at the enemy, through arrows, fire, pikes, swords, crossbows, and every other object that wise men have designed for the sole purpose of killing other men. The trained soldiers aren't the problem- it's their job and they're cool with it. Like I bought my boys in, and it's what they're been doing their whole lives, and with me to boot, so that's fine. The peasants however? Piggy's a farmboy who's never been more than two feet away from home and the closest thing to a weapon he's seen is his brother's asscrack. He really doesn't want to run at a solid wall of enemy soldiers. Think about that, and you have the gist of my job.

Of course, the next part of my job is to charge in the forefront like a bloody naked maniac, right into said enemy, and kill stuff, and not worry too much about getting killed myself when someone shoots me.

Yeah, a pretty important job.

Before Wu got me, Lu Meng admitted that they were in a pinch. Now that the fighting was getting bigger and bigger, he realized that the thing they needed was more all-stars in their vanguard. Someone to really make things explode, I guess. So while Wu was building up their team of suicide runners, Lu Meng happened to been there at my last battle under Huang Zu. When he saw me there, he knew right away that I was just what he needed. That's why he introduced me to Zhou Yu and they really pushed for Lord Sun to hire me.

I was wondering why getting me was so important to him! And here I was thinking that it was just because he liked me. Hah. So anyways, I got the job, and I got introduced to the other big bad boys, and after getting to know them for a bit, I started wondering if Wu took to recruiting from jail cells, or if they had some kind of reverse-background check in play. So while we're all sitting down and bragging about all the foul crimes we've committed before becoming men of the state (and some after), I hear this clink-clink-clink and guess who walks in.

"What the hell are you doing here?" I ask, getting ready for run for my life.

Ling Tong's just as confused and flustered to see me there. "Gan Ning," he says, saying my name the way some people say 'genocide' or 'tax collector,' "Gan Ning,_ what_ are _you_ doing here? I'm here for my job, thank you, so scram."

Well, guess what Ling Tong also happened to be? Vanguard general. Yeah, awkward.

He does a slow turn around (when I said he was a diva, I _mean_ he's a diva) to glare at everyone in the room. "Come on you guys, don't tell me you're actually _associating_ with him. Don't sink down to his level!"

"Well, if we're talking about sinking, well, I don't think that's the right word…" Old Yan says.

"Come now, Ling Tong, dudn't you see him against Huang Zu?" Jiang Qin presses. "I know he was fighting against us then, but when Ling Cao was leading the vanguard, he- oh. Oops, my bad," he sighs, covering his mouth while the quiet one, Zhou Tai rolls his eyes.

"Uh, yeah."

"Well, point is, you know we're all going to have to work with each other. Okay?"

"No, no, no, _not _okay!" Ling Tong snaps. "Okay, you guys maybe can tolerate that bastard, but _I_ won't! Do you hear me? I won't!" He stomps his feet and does his little huffy breath thing. And then he turns around and looks at me, giving this god-awful burning scowl like he wants nothing more than for me to just sink under the ground and disappear.

So I put my arms up like to show I'm unarmed. "Hey. Hey, man, I'm not asking you to _like_ me, but be professional about it, kay?"

He looks me in the eye and takes a step towards me. And then another step. And then another, and another step, until he's literally less than an inch away from my face.

It sounds stupid now that I'm saying it aloud, but that's the first time I smelled him. You know how everyone has their own signature smell? To me, even right then, Ling Tong smelled like everything fine in the world. His angry musky sweat and sharp metal, but also light jasmine flowers and freshly-washed silk. At that moment I was just inhaling, holding that scent in my mind. I couldn't help it- before I knew it I was just smelling him like an animal, and just to tell you, after getting together, it became my favorite smell in the _world._

Of course the next thing that happens is that Ling Tong leans forward and whispers, "I _loathe_ you."

Yep. After that, he took every available opportunity to show exactly how much he hated me.

If anything, he wasn't very subtle about expressing himself. I'd be out in training fields and he'd deliberately come by and knock me aside, smirk, and saunter away. He'd come over when I was drilling my men and start criticizing everything I was doing and just mouthing bad, bad, bad at and about me. Or he'd deliberately book the _entire_ training field as often as possible when I was around. (Of course he was real willing to share it with everyone else- Lu Meng, Taishi Ci, Ding Feng, everyone _but_ me.) He even tried to make the entire mess hall _vegetarian._ Fucking vegetarian, the worst kind of unholy terrible diet possible. I mean, what do you think we are, rabbits? And you know what, he likes meat and chow just as much as I do, but if it would mean I would suffer a little bit, he'd be willing to suffer a lot. And he would ask around about me, just to see what other people thought, probably hoping that someone'd hate me as much as he did, and then went and fumed and simmered whenever anyone said anything good about me, which of course they did.

Yeah, Ling Tong was a little bit obsessed.

But yeah, it was like there was a little fairy running around deliberately trying to make my life a living hell. And really, I'm not used to people loathing me- hate yes, fear yes, but actual pure personal loathing was really something new. It wasn't just that he hated what I did or what I was or what I was like, but rather that he hated _me_. So basically, all the little glares and stuff… I'm not usually the type to be affected by stuff like that, and I generally can put up with just about anyone. But it got to the point where I _asked_ to be put far, far away from him. Of course, working in such close quarters with each other, that was hard.

And somehow everyone thought that it would be a bloody brilliant idea to try to get us to work together by forcing us on each other. It was miserable incompatibility on miserable incompatibility- except for one incident that it indirectly caused. That was how we got together, and it was just like how we met- in battle, at odds with each other, and with a dead body involved.


	4. Chapter 4

I'm a lying cheating dirty filthy no-good thieving son of a boneless rat.

There's only two occupations fitting that description, and no, I'm not a government official. So that leaves the other option- river bandit.

But I sure know about value. Comes with the job.

I'll give you some advice. If you're trying to sell something and want the best price, don't get a jeweler or a moneychanger. Get a pirate. And nowadays, who's _not_ trying to sell something? Grandma ain't going to be wearing her precious gold bangles when you're on the run from the next warlord, and in this world, a good horse is worth more than a pretty little jade carving of one. Anyways, get a pirate, and as long as it's not so valuable he'll run off with it, he'll get you the _real_ value of your shiny things.

I for one know a lot about treasure. Just about all the gold and jade in China's passed through my hands at least once, no kidding.

Yeah, no one knows the proper worth like a pirate, not only for objects.

That's why I saved him. He wasn't just valuable- he was priceless!

I won't lie, Ling Tong made my life an absolute hell when I first joined up. Everything he did, it was all enough to make you hate a person.

But I couldn't let him go.

Anyways, it was at a minor attack, or at least what was _supposed_ to be a minor attack. So, when was this… Before Zhou Yu died, definitely. But the year? My service in Wu was pretty hectic at first. I joined up, gutted Huang Zu like I wanted… …And then all of a sudden Zhou Yu drags us to Red Cliff. Good times, man, but as you can see, it can get a bit blurry what happened when. At the time, me and Ling Tong weren't getting any sweeter on each other. In fact, if I remember correctly, he was one of the people who voted in favor of leaving me facing Cao Ren alone. Not just voted, Lu Meng told me later. _Insisted._ Threw a hissy fit. All that. So I guess it was pretty game of him to hold the base while Lu Meng came up with a relief force? Sure. Whatever. When we returned, Ling Tong walked by and whispered to me, "I wish Lu Meng had been too late."

So after Red Cliff, naturally there's still cleanup to do. Big victory, big noise, whoopee, whoopee, drinks for all, now back to work, boys. So after about a week of rest and relaxation and sending the surviving troops home (not to mention watching Zhou Yu wanking himself off to Sun Ce's portrait all day. I didn't even know that guy ever even _had_ a sex life!), we get fresh troops and fresh instructions. I wasn't too gleeful about this- you know on the rivers, you do a big raid and you rest for a few weeks until you feel like attacking another cargo again (or until the gold runs out, whichever comes first). But when you're in the army, well, it's totally different. Right away, Zhou Yu assigned me to go take out a small city where a Wei remnant, Yu something, was holding out. But you know the worst part? Guess who was going with me.

If you guessed an evil little murderous rat, you'd be right. Somehow, I had ended up with Ling Tong.

We bought our troops and rendezvoused right at the base of hill country. Ling Tong got there first, surprisingly, but I bet the little bitch was trying to show me up by making me look late. Anyways, when I arrived, I strode up next to him and crossed my arms. "Hey."

The first thing he did was give me a long, slow glare, followed by a twitchy little head turn that he supposed showed that he didn't give a rat's ass about me. Of course the effect was ruined when he kept on staring at me out of the corner of his eye. Ling Tong turned back to the troops guarding the supply line and just kept on breezing out orders.

Well, I was already prepared and all, so I just stood back and kicked the ground a bit. Prettyboy just kept on giving orders to his men, but what he did next took me by surprise.

He turned to _my_ men and said, "Go help securing the rice to the wagon." In case you didn't catch that, he just started ordering my guys around.

So naturally I stepped in. "Hey, hey, no, go check on the horses. Ling Tong, in case your nose is too high in the air to see, they're carrying _my_ banner. Gan. Read it."

Ling Tong did a slow little shoulder shrug-twitch thing followed by a little head toss thing that meant that he was about to ignore everything I had just said.

"Ling Tong, didn't you hear me?"

He slowly raised one of his hands and put a long finger on the bridge of his nose. "What?"

I gnashed my teeth. "You know what, whatever. Whatever. If you're going to be such a-"

"Everyone, the scouting party says there's nothing to worry about for now. Move out!" he shouted, putting his hands on his hips. Ling Tong turned his head to me and made his usual little half smirk. "Just try to keep up."

What a bitch.

We got through the hillsides without much incident, other than Ling Tong taking his usual little jabs at me the whole time. Since he hated me so much, I was really wondering why he kept on riding right next to me.

It went a little bit like this. For a bit, Ling Tong would ride next to me and keep being all derisive and snotty for about ten minutes, when he'd say something like "I can't stand you!" or "Just being around you makes me feel queasy" and ride off a bit. Ten minutes later, he'd come back and start all over again. Yeah, it was kind of weird.

But other than that, did we run into any trouble on the way? I get a lot of questions on how to deal with bandits, I mean, after being one myself. Well, let me tell you right now, bandits attack travelers and merchants carrying money and stuff, _not_ well-armed military parades. Trust me, bad idea. So basically, we don't deal with bandits when we're traveling somewhere. And of course I'm not bragging but, you know, I'm from an inside gig, and well, when your name gets around your name gets around. So just maybe my presence was a factor as well, but you decide. (By the way, the answer is 'yes.') Basically, aside from saying hi to old friends, bandits didn't bug me on the way there.

So I was getting a bit cocky by then, thinking, no way was this little commander going to stand a chance trying to defend a city from me. And Ling Tong too, I guess. But then guess what- lo and behold, the Wei general wasn't as stupid as I had thought.

Turns out the city was surrounded by a rather wide, fast river on one side and enclosed by some rather nasty-looking cliffs. The city wasn't a fortress, but with the natural barriers in the way, it didn't need to be. It was a pretty defensible position, and I didn't see any easy way of taking the place. Plus, the guy's obviously been waiting for us for a while. He's got barely any troops, but as I said, he's not stupid, and he's branched them out within the city walls. He's lookin' for a siege, and we didn't come prepared for one. So we decided (or rather, Ling Tong just said and I was thinking the same thing anyways so I didn't tear him a new one) on a speed frontal assault, a pincer move to take advantage of the fact that his men were already spread so thin around the perimeter. There were two paths- one to the cliffs, and the other across the river to the front of the city.

Ling Tong tosses his head, gives me his bitchy little smirk, and starts ordering his men towards the cliffs.

It made sense, you know. I'm a pirate. I've been on the water my whole life- being on rivers and lakes is completely natural to me. So of course I'm the best choice for the water attack, just that he wouldn't admit it.

So a quarter of my men and I crossed the river with a few boats and a lot of straw dummies, while the rest waited on shore for us to break the initial strike. The guys in the city were firing on us, so we had the heavy shields in the front. I was ducking right behind one, and between the cracks, I could make out, on the side of the cliff, Ling Tong and his men scaling up with grappling hooks and claws. Don't ask me why I was watching him- I was just keeping an eye on his ass to make sure he didn't screw up or something.

And you know what? I think that there were a few new recruits defending the edge, because out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that one of them was leaning a bit too far. And Ling Tong's men were carrying slings. So a head sticking out was a damn easy target. So the poor boy took two high-speed rocks to the head- enough to brain anyone. Whoopee, right?

No, not whoopee. The next thing I know, the newly-made corpse teeters, totters, over. It leans out, and it flops forward and starts falling. Guess who it landed on? If you guessed that the dead body comes crashing down and knocks into Ling Tong, you'd be spot on.

A lot of people describe dramatic moments like slowed time, like they could see every detail of it. Well, that wasn't what I saw. I didn't see Ling Tong's body suspended in air, or his form free-falling, or any detail like that. Basically, one moment he was there on the cliffs, the next he wasn't. I saw a little flash of black and red, and before I could think 'Hey, ain't that Tong?' I heard a splash and went 'Shit, that was!'

So, I jumped off the boat and swam right for Ling Tong. I made a beeline to where I thought I saw him land. I already mentioned the cliffs, but I don't think that I mentioned that right under the cliffs, sitting in the river like a bunch of holier-than-though priests, were a bunch of really sharp rocks. By that time I was getting a really sinking feeling in my stomach (never a good thing to have while swimming), but it didn't really occur to me that I could actually _lose_ Ling Tong. I was just worried about the damn rocks but didn't think about what they could do. In the end though, those rocks were probably pretty helpful. You see, around protrusions, water gets confused. It gets bounced around and makes little eddies and whirlpools, which was what was happening around the rocks. Ling Tong didn't miss the rocks, of course. There was blood everywhere in the water, and I wasn't really sure that he was all right. But either way, he was caught swirling around facedown on one of those little eddies circling the rocks, so it was easy for me to grab onto him and start swimming back.

Between the cold water and the dead weight on me and the current, I was getting drained pretty fast. Still, the adrenaline was keeping me going just enough so that I could just push back to the shore, where I could see my men throwing out a rope. But right when I thought that we were saved, guess what?

You can't blame me. I was out of my usual hunting grounds and totally unfamiliar with the water, plus I was too distracted by Ling Tong's unconscious body to notice a really strong subcurrent barely under the surface of the water.

_Whoosh._ Next thing I knew, we were speeding away from shore and down the river.

I looked up and went 'Oh shit' again, 'cause you know what was in front of me? A huge motherfucking waterfall.

Of course I didn't survive this long and become the great general I am today by panicking and going blank whenever something totally horrible shoves itself in my face. Well, except for a small amount of 'oh shit oh shit oh shit,' I was thinking pretty clearly and took account of my surroundings, which included the waterfall, but also outside and against the current, a breakaway stream that led _away _from the waterfall. There was no way, even if I was at full strength, that I could swim both of us to that stream fast enough, so I made a split second decision. I shoved Ling Tong to the diverging stream as hard as I could, meaning that I pushed myself just as hard in the opposite direction. So after letting go of that guy, all alone, I took a deep breath, waited for the edge to appear, and dove.

It took my men about ten minutes to find me, but a few hours for me to properly wake up and stop randomly shouting 'Motherfucking waterfall!'

So I bounce back up and I'm about to lead the charge on the city, but something hits me first.

"Guys. Where's General Ling?" I ask, turning around.

Everyone has the same guilty look on their face. That's when I knew.

"He's missing, ain't he?" I demand. "Yeah?"

"…Well, yeah, if missing means that we can't find him, yeah, he's missing," one man mumbles.

Stupid Tong. Stupid, stupid, Tong, and his stupid ass, and his stupid smirk and his stupid hair-tossy-thing and his stupid can't-get-him-out-of-my-mind thing and did I mention stupid Ling Tong?

Okay, so my decision. On one hand, we have a small city-fortress that's not particularly important and that even Cao Cao didn't care about, with one minor general of his who's got nowhere to go and no one to look to, and one minor river that's not even that important a shipping route. On the other hand, we have one of Lord Sun's best generals on the line.

"Zhou Yu'll send someone else to take this damn city," I say confidently. "Everyone, pull back and look for Ling Tong- oh, and destroy the bridge to the city, by the way, in case Cao's man tries to escape or get supplies or something."

Man, that Wei general must have been damn surprised when he saw, all of a sudden, all of us retreating and marching along the river bank.

By the way, in case you wonder what became of the Wei general? His name was Jiang Wei, I think, and as far as I'm concerned, he's still pushing papers in Wei. Poor sod might make something out of himself one day, who knows, but from what I've seen of him, I wouldn't hold my breath. Probably get himself killed doing something stupid one day for the glory or something, if I'm any judge. Not that that's a bad way to go, though.

Anyways, where was I. Oh yeah, searching for Ling Tong.

I was really getting worried when the second day dawned along the riverbank without any sign of his skinny ass. It was slowly dawning on me that first, he had taken a pretty hard fall, and hitting the water like that couldn't have been pretty. Secondly, he had probably inhaled a lungful of river water. Thirdly, being unconscious, well, um, yeah.

Can you imagine my relief when all of a sudden, the soldier I sent ahead starts screaming, "Hey, hey! Hey! We found him- he's breathing!"

I can remember that shout. It was amazing. Absolutely, wonderfully, amazing. It felt even better than when a scout told me that Huang Zu's rear forces were starting to retreat.

I sprinted (you can't bring a horse on a soggy mudflat like that) forward, just pushing men aside like a maniac. And sure enough, there he was, soggy but face up on the riverbank.

He was pale, he was ragged, he had more cuts than Zhou Tai gone through a paper shredder, but he was most definitely alive.

I threw back my head and laughed. "Stupid ass!" I shouted, stomping the ground as if I was angry. "Stupid ass!"


	5. Chapter 5

Ling Tong's inventory of injuries was a lot better than I had expected. The most he had was a fractured shin, probably from hitting a rock, along with you know, being unconscious and coughing up all sorts of gunk. Well, stupid sod was out for about a week, and I took care of him the whole time.

So, while on the rivers, I've seen a lot of doctoring stuff. And all the stuff I ever learned I used for him. For him, you hear? I'll tell you what I did.

I steeped all sorts of random plants and roots (a few of which I had never seen before, but they looked cool) into a tea and trickled it down his mouth, one drop at a time, until the whole bowl was empty. I fed him medicine carefully so that he wouldn't even splutter on it. Medicine once every four hours, even through the night. And water in between. Yeah, I didn't get much sleep at all.

I kept him warm. He kept on getting chills, from the river water I guess, and I made sure everything was warm. Kept a coal brazier going so that I could heat up his blankets. Of course the room got too warm for my comfort, but I guess it helped him to sweat the sickness out.

I cleaned him. Wiped the stinking sweat off and kept cleaning off his snot and mucus. Not a pretty job, and it was something I had to do constantly. I'd wipe away snot one minute and the next, his damn runny nose would be sprinting again. And the repeated wipings made his skin dry and cracked, so I had to rub oil into it, between sponging off the sweat and snot and all that crap. And his splint- well, didn't smell much better.

I even changed his damn sheets, at least three times a day. By the time they were ready for changing, those sheets would be soaked through with sweat and heavens-knows-what-else. Oh, and his wrappings. These went once every hour. I'll tell you this, he wasn't passing much waste, but his piss, distilled from his medicine, was- well, you can guess.

The old man was surprised. I think that he thought that I was trying to molest or murder Ling Tong, so he had the kid Lu Xun keep an eye on me for a while. Of course he was pretty shocked when he realized that I was sticking around playing nurse to a man who had sworn to make my life misery. And not like committing homicide or rape or anything. But really, if anyone should have known I'd be babying Tong twenty-four hours a day, I would have thought Lu Meng would have guessed.

Well, I guess he had every right to not expect me to do it. To tell you the truth, if you look at everything that had happened between us, what I was doing made absolutely no sense. But think about it.

He was too precious to die. Let me tell you what I mean.

Once, before I was the biggest thing on the river, I was a flea-bitten kid scraping by on just about anything I could manage to do. Never seen more than two coppers in the same place. Anyways, during that time, I joined in on a raid. When it was all over, the prize cut when to the biggest, baddest guy. I still remember- it was a gold necklace. Not just a necklace, actually, but a whole collar, woven from wires of gold. It was beautiful- not just the gold, but also the craftsmanship- it was a work of art. Just looking at it made you think about some old man toiling by candlelight, pulling out wire by wire and weaving them together.

Anyways, I took my share- a bag of bronze with a few pieces of silver. Yippee. So I exited the main boat by walking across a shaky plank. Moments later, that big guy with the necklace came out too.

Well, it was just a piece of wood someone laid between the docked boat and the shore. And naturally, everyone was a bit tipsy from celebrating. So I guess it wasn't so much the guy's fault that while he was showing off his prize, he tripped and dropped the necklace.

Why did I care? It wasn't mine. I didn't have any connection to the sod. So why did I dive after it- jump after it, really, and grab it before it sunk to the bottom river?

I caught the necklace in the river, and I came up soaking wet, gold in hand. I shoved it back to the guy. Told him that it was his. Walked away.

Of course I would have kept it if I had the chance. Of course I didn't save it out of any love for the big guy. So why did I jump to save that necklace? For my sake, and everyone else's, just to prevent something so nice from being lost to the world. See, even if it's someone else's thing, even if no matter how much you wanted it, it would never be yours, to let a work of art, something so fine and nice, just be lost like that, no one can stand it! Even though it wasn't mine, a waste. An utter waste, if I hadn't saved it.

Now think of me and Ling Tong. I'm me, he's the necklace. Sure, he's mean, sure he's nasty and a bitch to me. He didn't like me, and I tolerated him out of work. But he's a work of art by himself. He's one of a kind, priceless and precious at the same time. Even though (at that time) I thought that I'd never have him, that he'd never be mine, not putting in every bare effort to save him, to care for him, would be like letting that wonderful necklace sink to the bottom of the river, to be buried in mud. No man can bear it!

So, back to me and Ling Tong. How did it all go?

Ling Tong didn't wake up all at once. When you've been knocked out and in a semi-coma while healing, you don't jump up all of a sudden and start talking. After a week, he gurgled a bit. Opened his eyes without seeing, and closed them again. Twitched his hand, and sneezed on me. Then he went back to dreamland. Second day was a bit better, and slowly, bit by bit, on the fourth day, he looked at me, all cross-eyed and bleary, and opened his mouth. And what was the first thing he said, after his ordeal, to his savior?

"Eh? I'm late. What time is it?"

Yeah, real dramatic.

Still, I started laughing, laughing aloud, while he just stared at me, uncomprehending, while his brain slowly jogged back to proper function. He stared at the wall for a bit, his eyes focusing and unfocusing, while I propped him upright.

By the way, did I mention that Lu Meng has special Old Man psychic senses? While I'm laughing, just watching Ling Tong blinking like a surprised chicken, Lu Meng bursts into Ling Tong's room, little Lu Xun in tow.

"I thought I heard you laughing!" he says accusingly, as if he thinks I've gone and murdered Ling Tong secretly. But he stops when he sees Ling Tong sitting upright and blinking.

"Master Gan Ning, has he awoken?" Lu Xun asks, as if he can't tell.

"Yeah, look!"

"Excellent!" Lu Meng exclaims, walking forward. "Ling Tong!"

Ling Tong takes about five minutes to reorient himself. Then he cracks back into normal mode. He looks around in confusion, and seeing the sheets around him, he rolls his eyes. "Damn," he says. "Yeah, I think I can guess what happened. Lu Meng, what about the city?"

"Zhou Tai and Taishi Ci set out after you can back and took it," Lu Meng says reassuringly. "Don't worry, no one could have expected that freak accident, and you're more important than-"

Ling Tong's head whips around. His hair's not tied up, so it swirls around with him. He looks straight at me and glares. "You," he states, as if it was my fault he's sitting in the bed and not carrying home Jiang Wei's head. He snarls, bristles. "Lu Meng, what the hell is this failure doing here?" he demands.

Lu Meng coughs. "Ling Tong, well-"

Ling Tong looks at me with revulsion. "Get him out of here. I can't stand the thought of that freak staring at me while I'm down."

Uh, yeah, thanks, man. "Hey. Ling Tong-"

"What are you still doing here?" Ling Tong asks hotly.

I huff and step forward. "I have _every_ right to be here. Just so you know-"

Ling Tong tries to leap out of bed, but he ends up tumbling on his side instead. Still, he scrambles up and looks at me in disgust. His throat works for a moment before he shouts. "_Right? Right?_ Who the hell are you kidding?" He pauses, turning to look at everyone in the room. "Gan Ning," he says, as if my name is a swearword, "_murderer,_ you don't even have the right to _look_ at me! _I'm_ the one with the right to cut off your head-"

"Hey!" I shout right back. "You don't-"

"_Why_ are you still here?" Ling Tong screams. "I said, get out! I don't want you here- get _out!_" He tries to come at me, but settles for grabbing the cup I used to feed him medicine out of and hurls it at me. I duck and hear clay shattering behind me.

"Calm down, Ling Tong-" Lu Meng begins.

Ling Tong makes a harsh gesture. "Lu Meng, remember what I said about Gan Ning? You know I won't- Just get him out of here." He turns his head, his mouth in a tight, thin line.

"Ling Tong-"

"Just get that damn bastard out of here!"

"Fine!" I shout heatedly. "Fine, asshole! Fine!" I stomp out and slam the door behind me for good measure, before yanking it open again. "You're a damn ungrateful little asshole, just so you know!" I yell before slamming the door again.

* * *

So. Did it hurt, to have the man I held and cared for more than a week act like that to me? Maybe a bit.

I don't cry. I never cry. But still, I couldn't help but feel my eyes burning a little. Most of it was because I was so angry and indignant- just furious. Not at myself, not, I was definitely taking the moral high ground. But at Ling Tong- stupid fucking Ling Tong. Yeah, I was definitely having second thoughts about even going after him as I stomped down the hallway, away from that little fucker.

Stupid Tong, I told myself. Stupid Ling Tong, stupid asshole.

There's the padding of little footsteps after me, the sound of someone who wears silk slippers and weighs less than a hundred pounds. Since there's no reason for a twelve year old girl to be following me around, I turn to the next possibility.

"What dya want, Lu Xun?" I bark, turning around and glowering.

Lu Xun, to his credit, doesn't flinch at my tone. Instead, he opens his hands reassuringly and gives me a comforting look. "Master Gan Ning, I would be surprised if you were not hurt or angry-"

"Hey. Hey." I swipe angrily at the air in front of me. "I don't know what you're thinking, but let me tell you, this is just me being pissed at that ungrateful little brat." I wish Lu Xun would stop smiling so sympathetically. It's fucking annoying, the way he's all nice and collected while I'm feeling like shit. It makes me feel like he's feelin' sorry for me, which makes me feel _angry._ "Look, I'm not in the mood for you to psychoanalyze my childhood right now. Fuck off."

"Master Lu Meng and I were just telling Ling Tong everything you did. We went back and questioned the soldiers… Wu thanks you. We all do," he said, bowing in his little dainty demure way.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. You're welcome," I said.

"Lu Meng praised you. I'm sure he'll repeat his words to you in person later," Lu Xun tells me.

I scratch my ear and pretend to not be interested. "Hmph. And what did Ling Tong say?" I asked, looking away from the boy.

"Well, I'm not sure. I don't know."

"What do you mean ya don't know? You were right there!"

"Yes, but well… I couldn't quite understand the meaning of most of it."

"Oh? Well, what was most of it then?" I ask, advancing on Lu Xun and narrowing my eyes.

Lu Xun looks like he's going to shut up, but thinks better of it. "Uh, well, if I remember correctly, 'fuck, fuck, fuck, holy fuck, shit, crap, fuck, kill me now please kill me now," he says, turning bright red. "I don't know what that means. Perhaps you can enlighten us?"

"Don't know." I turn my shoulder to him, as if he was the one who had just cussed me out and chucked stuff at me. "Seeya."

Yeah, so it wasn't the most gallant of me to take it out on the poor boy. But I never said I was a nice fair person, did I? You can call me out on a lot of stuff, that I know, but at least you can't call me a liar.

"No, Master Gan Ning." Lu Xun pads after me. "Don't go anywhere. I think Ling Tong might need to see you after he recovers."

"He's waited this long; he can sure wait longer. I said, _bye!_" I snap, stomping off to the beat of Lu Xun's protests.


	6. Chapter 6

I wish people would mind their own business. When I'm sitting around wallowing in self-pity and self-righteous anger, I don't want anyone going around poking their nose in it and trying to make me feel better, dammit.

So I'm sitting around sulking and drinking and thinking about how I was so horribly wronged when someone tries to do something productive.

"Gan Ning."

I turn around. It's Lu Meng, and he doesn't look happy.

"For the last time, I don't feel like dealing with her royal majesty." I cross my arms stubbornly and slouch against the wall.

"I don't care if you're not in the mood. Why haven't you answered any of the summons?"

"I told you, I don't feel like it!"

"What did I just say? Stop being such a petulant child, Gan Ning," he says crossly.

"If he wants to see me so bad, tell him to walk over here himself," I snap.

Lu Meng gives me that quit-that-attitude look, and I sigh.

"Look, I don't want to go see him. I'm just not up to it- there, see?"

"Not up to it? More like you just want to sit around moping all day. Get up, Gan Ning," he says, grabbing me by the ear. "That's enough out of you."

"Ouch-" Oh man, Lu Meng's ear pinches are like ten bee stings at once! "Ouch! Old man, let go!" I shout as he drags me down the corridor.

* * *

The room is empty when I push open the door and look around. There's nothing but the smell of medicine and unwashed sheets, and I wrinkle my nose, trying to reacquaint myself with the acidic air.

"Hello?" I call, looking around for Ling Tong.

There's a silence, before faintly, from the balcony outside, a voice answers. "Here."

I walk through the room, past used medicine bowls and bandages, and out into the daylight.

He's sitting out on the porch on a cushioned chair, getting a bit of fresh air in his lungs. Frankly, he's a mess- his eyelids are coated in grime, his breath smells like a sewer, his hair's in five different directions… But it's mostly his slumped, tired form, like he's so empty from exhaustion that there's nothing propping him up from the inside. Ling Tong turns his head when I approach- to my surprise, his eyes are swollen and red, like he's been crying up a fair puddle while I was gone.

So the man whose father I had killed and who I had clashed with but who I saved and was now waking up from a weeklong sail in Comaland was sitting in front of me, looking like he'd been sniffling over something. So I say the only right thing to say. "Ya look horrible."

"Hey." He forces a smile.

"Hey yourself." I sit down without asking permission, lounging on the mat next to him.

There's another silence. A bird lands on the railing, but seeing us, flits away quickly, chirping as it goes.

"So. What I'm gonna ask is… Does this like, you know. Does this mean you're gonna, you know?" I ask.

Ling Tong's head slowly drops, and his hair falls all around his face like a curtain, obscuring his eyes. I think he's hiding something, but he doesn't say anything.

"Well. You were out for a while. Old Man and Lu Xun bought you up to speed? Everything's 'kay now, you can chill."

No response. He's not ignoring me- quite the opposite really. He's so conscious of me that it feels like he's staring at me, even those he isn't even looking at me.

I flick a piece of lint off of my knee. On the wooden post in front of me, a beetle walks, its tiny little legs making it look as if it's just sliding along the rough wood. I sigh and look at Ling Tong again.

Whatever's blowing through his mind, he sure doesn't feel like sharing. So we sit more, and I watch the beetle until it takes off into the air and away.

Someone needs to say it. We both know it, and we both know what needs to be said. But Ling Tong's not going to do it in the next five hours it seems, so I take a breath. "Yeah, I killed Ling Cao. But look, I saved his son. Isn't that enough for any father? I think he'd think that that was a fair trade."

Ling Tong's silent, but his fingers are still tapping the edge of the balcony.

"I think that's enough for any man."

For a while, it's just the two of us, sitting on the porch and staring at the garden below. His hair is greasy from being unwashed, but the glimmer of sunlight on it is fresh as can be, and I'm just sitting there, watching his heavy eyelashes flutter as he thinks.

Finally, he chuckles- he doesn't look at me, but he doesn't need to.

"I guess," Ling Tong says quietly. "I guess."


	7. Chapter 7

So. There, that was the fork in the road, the bridge burning, the point of no return, the cool metaphor, or whatever you wanna call it. I woke up that morning feeling pretty excited, as if I was waiting for a shipment of fancy stuff or something. I hurried down to the mess hall with a bounce in my step, as if I was about to open a surprise gift.

I think that I'm catching on to Lu Meng's favorite way of dealing with conflicts between people. He's taken the only seat _not_ next to Ling Tong and had ordered the table set in such a way that if I wanted to have a bowl to use, I'd either have to sit on Ling Tong's left or Ling Tong's right. And it's not like the hall's packed either- no, the Old Man did it _intentionally! _This late in the morning, you'd have to be having either a real late breakfast or a real early lunch. So there's Ling Tong, who refuses to get up before the sun's already high in the sky- that's Mr. Late, Late, Late Breakfast. There's Taishi Ci, who's got this spectacular black eye (I heard it had something to do with Zhou Tai and a basket of unripe peaches), so that's the Early Lunch. And of course Lu Meng's having a pot of tea to go with his medicine.

Lu Meng catches my eye as I walk in and gives me an indulgent smile. I shrug and seeing as I really have no choice, sit down next to Ling Tong. "Hey, man."

"Hey yourself." Ling Tong's looking a little bit under the weather- not as bouncy or sharp as he usually is. He's not languid or leisurely- he's just plain tired-looking. But who can blame him? He gives me something that only a generous liar could call a grin. It's more of a grimace, like he's watching an approaching cavalry, unsure if it was one of us or one of Cao's lot.

"Did you guys leave any food for me? I'm starving," I complain. Actually, I'm not even hungry, but it seemed like a good thing to say, just to say something.

For a moment, Ling Tong lightens up- I see that cheeky old rascal grinning through- he cheekily pulls the main bowl of congee towards him before chuckling and pushing it towards me. "You'll live. I need it more than you," he says, but then catches himself. He stops smiling as if frightened. "Hah, kidding. Pig out, man," he laughs tinnily. The laugh goes on for a second longer than necessary- he just seems to be trying to do _something._ Well, he ain't the only one.

"Well, you could stand to put on a few pounds," I say just to continue, pouring ladleful of the boiled-to-mush rice into my own bowl. It lands with a gross-sounding splat. "Pass the egg."

Before I can clarify that I meant the omelet eggs, not the salted duck eggs, Ling Tong passes over the fried ones. I give him a puzzled look- has he really been _that_ observant of _all _my little habits? Man, talk about obsessed!

He doesn't notice what he just gave away, and helps himself to some pickled vegetables.

"How're you feeling?" I ask after a few seconds. There's no one else to strike up a conversation with and it's just wrong to ignore each other without an excuse. It just seems like we should be talking, but I'm not sure what to say.

He shrugs after a moment. "Could be better." He looks at me and gives me his stiff, nervous grimace before going back to eating. Quickly, he flickers his eyes up to me, soppy with some weird emotion. He coughs. "…Hey. Sorry, man."

"Chill, it's just congee," I say, running a hand through my hair.

"Not the congee!" he snaps, and for a moment I see the old Tong before he quickly sighs and shakes his head. "Nevermind. Sorry."

Ah-hah. I shake my head. That little exchange's told me all I need to know.

The damn bastard's feeling _guilty._

For what? Could be anything. For starters, the simplest (and most obvious in my opinion, by the way) source of guilt is that he's been treating me as if I were a mangy dog that's crawled onto Lord Sun's table. But that's okay to feel guilty about. In fact, he _should_ feel guilty about that, or at least in my opinion. But hey, that's easy to make up for- he could just start treating me real nice and fine from now on- I wouldn't mind that!

Or maybe he's feeling guilty that I saved him, but he's still holding a grudge, involuntarily and all. 'Cause then he'd feel guilty for _not _liking me. But if this wasn't the case, then in his father's memory, he'd feel guilty for _not _disliking me! Or maybe he's guilting himself over something else. That guy's got so much overthinking that I wouldn't be surprised if his head exploded one day.

But whatever he's so fixated on, I would hazard quite a bit of money that that was the source of all this awkwardness. And man, I don't know what's more awkward- us talking or the silence. Disappointment's sinking its dirty little feet in.

Man, what a reward! Here we are, being so uncomfortable we might as well set ourselves on fire just to complete the feeling, while I was expecting that, after my grand ol' rescue and tender lovin' care, he'd-

Huh. Maybe that's why I feel so bummed out.

To tell you the truth, call me a bit idealistic, but I was expecting something like a nice ol' folktale ending for me. You know, the hero rescues the beautiful maiden and she swears undying loyalty and love to him and happily rides home with him and they have a million sons and live happily ever after? Something like that, but without the kids.

In other words, I was expecting that the rescue would suddenly make everything peachy between us. That all of a sudden, poof! We'd be good ol' buddies, right old chums, oath brothers 'til the end. All our past troubles wiped away, and a clean slate- no, more than a clean slate: a steady smooth foundation, would make it real easy for us to get real close and you know, be together and stuff and… Stuff…

But what happened? Not that!

Now without the jabbing and the unpleasantaries, we just have one disappointed guy, one really guilty-looking guy, and enough awkwardness to run a junior scholar's school.

Lu Meng catches my eye. He seems like he's going to say something like how nice it is to see us not at each other's throats for once, but he apparently decides against it and settles for smiling before ducking back down to sip a bowl full of brew. That old bastard- how dare he smile! He at least should be able to see how awkward it is, and how badly I want the awkward to stop so we can finally get in a decent conversation!

It's odd how quiet it is between us when Ling Tong's not taking little jabs at me.

Man. I know that life's full of disappointment, but…

"I gotta go," I say quickly, standing up so fast the table bounces against my stomach.

Ling Tong turns his head questioningly, but I don't look at him- I don't look at him, or Taishi Ci, or Lu Meng, who's about to yell after me any second. I don't look at the food or even my drink as I turn my back and power out as fast as a walk can go.

"Gan Ning!" Someone cries out my name haggardly, desperately, pleadingly. But it's not Lu Meng. It was Ling Tong who called me with such a pained voice.

Still, I don't turn around. There's something in his plea that resonated a bit too closely to what was inside of me.

I speed back to my room, where my bed's still unmade and my mess is right in place. Grabbing a jar of wine from my cabinet, I don't bother with a cup- I pour it straight down my throat, barely tasting it as it sloshes through my mouth.

Drinking's too light a word- I keep pouring alcohol down my throat like I haven't done since I grew up and grew a brain.


	8. Chapter 8

Something was stinging my head.

That's the first thing I feel when I come to. I'm achy and my mouth feels a bit dry- I mean, it's been a long time since I stupidly binged on anything. But it's still light out- a good sign, because even though the brightness is painfully burning to my eye, it means that I still have my old boozing skills left to me. Only afternoon, after all- so I must have only napped for two hours so? I crack open one eye just a sliver.

Well, I get a bit surprised by what I saw.

There's Ling Tong, his eyes half-closed, kneeling next to my bed and twisting a few of my hairs together between his fingers. His hand is right by my face, and I quickly kept my eye opened just a sliver, watching him. The bugger's face isn't stretched taut and wary like it's been before, whenever he looks me in the eye.

There's nothing that you can judge a person by as accurately as watching him when he thinks that no one's watching. And Ling Tong sure doesn't think an unconscious man would be peeping. He's crouching there so open and relaxed, and looks at me gently. I nearly jump- after being used to his sharp, sardonic glances, I've never seen such a soft look from him before. And he's humming something. I don't know the song, but it sounds vaguely familiar.

_Tink._ I hold back a shudder as Ling Tong pulls out a few of the hairs that he was holding. Man, he won't even let up when I'm down?

But he doesn't seem to have causing me unending suffering in mind. Instead, he holds up those hairs to the window, examining them. In the light, they're shrouded in a bright, saturated glow, as if every fiber was shot through with molten metal. This seems to please him a bit, 'cause then, after a few long moments, still humming, Ling Tong brings down his hand and tucks the hairs -my hairs- carefully into his pocket.

Whoa, man. _Whoa._

He trails an index finger along my temple, spiraling it a bit at the end. Then, he reaches back for my head, and I involuntarily cringe a little bit- I mean seriously I was really weirded out. His hand stops, and he looks like he's reconsidering, before quickly he grabs a few stray hairs brushing the border of my cheek- ouch.

This time, Ling Tong quickly stuffs his prize into his pocket and pats it to make sure it's secure.

And then he licks his fingers.

Ai-ya. Before the bugger can pluck me bald or creep me out even more, I shake my head and coincidentally "wake up."

"Well, look who decided to get his ass in line. I thought you were going to be there all day. Bit of a featherweight, aren't you?" Ling Tong's lips curl into a lazy sneer. The soft look from before is gone, and he's right back to his usual condescending self. What a relief, because I was getting a bit uncomfortable with him looking all tender and shit.

"I was just taking a nap. Had a late night and an early start, you know." I give him a scowl; he knows I'm proud of my alcoholic capacities.

"Sure." He draws out the word four seconds long, and if I didn't have my oh-so-iron self-control I would have smacked him down on the spot.

But I'm feeling lazy, and well, the brat's been sitting there waiting for me to wake up for how long. "So. What's the deal? What are you doing barging into my room without permission?" I raise an eyebrow, letting him know that despite him deserving it, I wasn't in a brawling mood.

Apparently that's the wrong move, because he knots his eyebrows together and scowls.

"What's with the face?"

"Well excuse me for checking on you to make sure that you hadn't died from alcohol poisoning." Ling Tong leans in closer- I don't know what's on his mind but he looks even surlier than before.

"Calm down. Thanks."

"_Thanks?_" he hisses.

Uh. Well, excuse me for thinking that that was the right thing to say? "What, you take that as an insult?" I snap. What's with this guy?

"You mad?" Ling Tong taunts.

"I'm not mad at you; just fucking pissed!"

"Care to tell me the difference?"

I shove him hard, gritting my teeth. "Stop being so… So…" I'm looking for a word, but I'm not much of a scholar or a poet. I want a word that describes a person who does stupid useless shit for a stupid useless purpose that doesn't help _anyone._ Because that's Ling Tong. He goes through all that masochistic moping and groaning out of his own free will, as if making himself suffer was going to be some sort of really self-centered penance for me, his father, himself, and everything.

What a self-absorbed, egotistical son of a whore! Thinking that making himself feel bad was helping _anyone._ It makes me boil in ignorance- thinking that filling some sort of unproductive self-pity-loathing thing matters to _anybody?_ That's the ultimate arrogance. And trust me I know a damn thing about arrogance myself, and all I can say is that at least I never had that kind of arrogance Ling Tong did, thinking that his personal shit and existential whatever psychological crisis was even vaguely important in anyone's reality aside from his own little la-la land.

And how did I ever have any nice feelings for a little piece of shit like that?

I get a surge of boiling prickly indignancy, and my patience, worn thin already by his persistent guilt, tears right through. "Ling Tong, _go away!_" I snap at him, the words seething between my teeth. It's something I've said to him over and over again before when he was still trailing after me, trying to trip me and making really uncalled-for comments about my junk, and really, it's no business what I'm doing with my underarms. But this time it's different- it's loaded with contempt, and contempt's like salt- even a tiny pinch is effective, while a spoonful is just overwhelming.

Ling Tong stops. Hatred can he take. Annoyance- that's his goal. Frustration; he delights in causing it for me! But contempt?

He stops walking, an unpleasantly surprised look on his lips.

"Fine," he says quietly, his whole face contorting like he's in pain. "Fine. Fine. _Fine!_" by the last 'fine,' he's shouting, a glob of spit flying from his quivering lips.

The sight of Ling Tong's face twisted like that is a knife through my balls. I immediately regret snapping like that at him, just because I had to see him like that- I can't see Ling Tong hurt; that would be a really bad thing. Before I can respond, he's gone, his footsteps beating down the hallway. The sight of his face burns me- that feeling, that I want him to stop hurting and smile ago wells up and I can't take it. But still- I'm Gan Ning, and sometimes, the things I do aren't the things I want to do. This is one of those times. I listen to his footsteps disappear.

It feels like defeat, and I hate defeat. At the moment, there's one man I want to talk to, so I go to him.

* * *

There are three things that Ding Feng loves most of all: Creating works, cultivating thoughts, and breeding pigeons. If I were to describe him to a lady, I'd say that he has a creative spirit and a wide range of hobbies. Of course I probably wouldn't mention exactly what hobbies he had, but hey, no one's perfect.

If I had to say something about him, Ding Feng certainly thought about things along a different road than anyone else. He'd go on and on describing mankind's drive for an unattainable ideal and the futility of man's fight against nature, and when you thought he was talking some seriously deep philosophy, it'd turn out that he was actually talking about picking his nose or something. Or when you were blazing mad about your lieutenant who couldn't take a simple order and had to go screw up every formation you tried to put your troops through, he'd smile and start talking about how it reminded him of eating a moldy peach or something.

And there was that time at the art show. Every year, Lord Sun throws his whole big-deal art exhibit where the most talented people all show off their best work and all. But Ding Feng, one year, he once did this thing where he splattered ink on a canvas or something and saying that it symbolized the detachment of lines from shape and the paper as a stage instead of a canvas or some nonsense like that. We all thought that he was going to show off one of his fine calligraphies or brush paintings of the rice fields or something. But instead he unveiled something that a six-year-old could do by accident. And instead of being embarrassed, he was damn proud of it, or at least as proud as a man without a shred of egotism could be. It was a totally new kind of art, he said. It would redefine the very relationship between an artist and his work, he said. _It's art,_ he said.

Yeah, yeah, and I'm Cao Cao's favorite concubine. As for Ding Feng's grand experiment in revolutionizing art…. Lord Sun said it was interesting, but what about that nice painting of the river that he was just working on last week? Or what about that lovely calligraphy of passages from the Book of Odes? Or for the gods' sakes what about even the napkin he was doodling on at dinner oh please even that? Needless to say, Ding-Dong didn't try to pull anything like that again.

I made a mistake by going to him afterwards, slapping him on a back, and complimenting his sheer _guts_- I mean, even I didn't have the gall to prank Lord Sun like that, submitting random crap to his most-anticipated art show! But Ding Feng looked like he was going to tear up, and he just stared at me. …And wow, it turned out, he was… Actually _serious_. Yeah, that was pretty awkward.

Still, differences in common sense regarding art aside, Ding Feng seems to like me. "You're the virility of the human experience," he told me once. "You are determination of the stag that swims against the current, or the staunch obstinate thirst for life of a weed that gets run over by a donkey. You are a weed, yes- you thrive whether you are lathered in manure or rooted in the cracks of the driest rock. And it overflows from you to others- I feel my gut strengthening as if you were a rain after a drought." Don't get me wrong I still have no idea what he means, especially what with the manure part, but he was smiling when he said it so it must have been a compliment.

Today, he's a carpenter. I find him in one of the palace gardens, lacquering planks of wood next to what looks like a half-starved pavilion.

"Ding Feng." I stride up to him nonchalantly.

He looks up and turns around, clasping his hands in greeting. "General Gan. It is a surprise as pleasant as dew in the morning," he booms. I wonder what he means by that, but he takes his words to be as clear as day to us humble not-artsy people.

"Hey." I approach the strange construction and give it a testy kick. "What's all this?"

Ding Feng has a thoughtful look in his eyes. "I hope to make this a shelter for refugees from the chaos," he says dreamily.

I frown. "Uh. No offense, Ding Feng, but I don't think Lord Sun's gonna like those displaced peasants living in his garden…"

He blows a stream of air, a sort of gentlemanly half-whistle, between his teeth in amusement. "No, no, not that kind of refuge," he chuckles. "Refugees from the chaos. People who are weary of uncertainty and exhausted of loss. Those who are wearing of shouldering the burden of past wrongs, who look forward to rebuilding up what's been cracked and damaged…" Ding Feng's beetle eyes glisten.

Uh. Sure. Whatever.

"General Gan… Please excuse me, but you seem troubled."

Well, imagine that. I'm adding 'psychic' onto Ding Feng's resume.

"It's nothing," I lie. "Just…"

"It's never 'nothing' if you have to say 'just' at the end," he says gently.

"I guess."

"I can tell that you don't want to divulge the finer details of your troubles," Ding Feng states. "But whatever it is… You are as a seed in spring, striving to send forth a shoot beyond the harsh rocks."

Without asking permission, I stomp over to the unfinished half-bench inside the framework and drop my sorry ass right onto the unsanded surface. "I think," I said slowly. "I think, this whole thing is just what we need. When'll it be done?"

Ding Feng looks off into the distance. "Well… At the rate that I'm getting dispatched back and forth…. Maybe two years."

I spit. "Two years for a tiny little pavilion?"

"It may be tiny in size but in artistry it will be quite grand," Ding Feng protests. "Besides, General Gan, it isn't like people can't find that peace on their own."

I huff out a long breath. "I guess you're right about that."


End file.
